by Matt Hilton
Seconds had passed, ample time for Erick to assist his boss, but he took his time walking over. He grasped Billie’s hair and made a fist of his own, then reared back, and flung her on to her backside on the floor. Blood ran from Billie’s lips, but it wasn’t her own. She sat there, staring with volcanic heat in her gaze, as Amanda crawled to her knees, her hands going to the wounds on both sides of her face. Fearing that her looks had been permanently ruined, her stern, smug, sadistic traits of earlier were replaced by those of a vain woman. She cried into her hands, then dabbed at the wounds with her fingertips, and when she saw the glistening blood it didn’t help. She fell over on to her right hip, then backed up to the wall. Surprisingly her accusations weren’t immediately directed at Billie. ‘You allowed her to attack me!’ Amanda shrieked at Erick, her right eye screwed tight.
‘Sorry, ma’am, she surprised us all.’
‘You could have stopped her!’
‘I did. Trust me, if I hadn’t pulled her off you when I did your injuries wouldn’t be as superficial.’
‘Superficial? She’s almost torn my eye out!’ Amanda turned her ire on Billie. ‘You bitch! I’ll have you killed for that.’
Billie hadn’t moved from where she’d landed on her backside. She smiled viciously. ‘You were going to have me killed any way. What more can you do to me now?’
‘You were going to be offered a clean bullet. Now I’m going to have you beaten to death. Slowly. Erick . . .’
Erick didn’t move.
Billie laughed at the woman’s pathetic threat. ‘I bet you wouldn’t try it yourself. Touch me and I’ll finish ripping your face off, you whore.’
Amanda struggled to stand, to regain some vestige of dignity. It was difficult while blinking wildly, half blinded by blood and tears. Erick offered a steadying hand, but she slapped it away angrily, reaching instead for her dropped cell phone. She was horrified when she realised that her call had gone through and there was an open line, through which her superiors were listening. Her face an open book of dismay, she hit the end call button. She must contact her bosses with an update, to reassure them that everything was under control, but not in that room while Billie laughed as if she’d just heard the best joke ever.
‘Erick! Shut her up now, goddamn it.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Erick said. He loomed over Billie where she still sat on the floor. Billie lifted her face to laugh in his.
‘Quiet,’ he said.
‘Go to hell,’ Billie replied.
‘You got your licks in, but don’t push your luck.’
‘Touch me and I’ll do the same to you as I did to that bitch,’ Billie promised.
There were no second warnings from the PMC. Erick kicked her, his instep jarring her chin, slamming her teeth together, and knocking her flat on her back, unconscious.
34
Perhaps it was one of the two men from the foyer who I’d tied in the closet who raised the alarm, or maybe the guy I’d spared a few minutes ago. It didn’t really matter, because sooner or later it was going to happen, and I’d been lucky to get as far as I had before the alarms started ringing. A recorded message played through amplified speakers, warning of an intruder alert. I heard corresponding shouts and running feet as the site went into lockdown mode and PMCs raced for their positions. I could continue to creep around, maybe even find a secure hiding spot, and avert detection for a while, but what was the purpose of that? I was there to snatch Billie out of the hands of her captors and couldn’t do that if I was dug in like a tick. I’d always believed in forward momentum and decisive action. So I pressed on, and now put aside all thought of future consequences. Right then, right there, I was a man trying to save a woman from her abusers, and the laws of the lands meant nothing by comparison. If the PMCs came at me with deadly intent, they’d find me in a similar shoot-to-kill frame of mind.
My resolution was tested within seconds.
I’d reached the bottom of the stairs, and moved through another set of doors, finding myself in a storage area stacked high with crates and yellow plastic drums. On the drums were warnings about corrosive chemicals, and I steered away from them, placing myself near a stack of crates, just as two men in green PMC uniforms came in the same door I’d just entered by. They must have spotted me entering the storage room, and recognised me as an interloper, because they came in low, with their guns extended. They were decent soldiers, too, and had I been a few seconds slower in finding cover they would easily have taken me down. Instead, they were still sweeping their guns to and fro as they searched, while I bobbed out from behind the stacked crates at a ninety-degree angle to them. The nearest man caught movement in his peripheral vision and began his turn towards me, but by then my first shot was already on its way. He fell dead without ever fully laying eyes on me.
The second man fired and his bullets forced me down, as he too sought cover. He plunged behind a row of plastic drums while speaking frantically into a radio. Support was on the way and I couldn’t afford to get trapped in the storage area. I took out a spare pistol, and propping both hands over the crates I unloaded on the plastic barrels. The sound was deafening, and even though I couldn’t see clearly I could hear the puncturing of the drums, and chemicals splashing everywhere. My opponent had moved; he bobbed out a few yards distant and returned fire. Chips of wood almost blinded me, he came so close to taking off my head. I went down on my knees and then my belly and found a gap through the lower crates, firing again, but this time tracking the guard as he too tried to move for cover. My bullets tore through the drums, and at least one of them hit him. I heard a grunt and a clatter and believed he’d dropped the radio. I came up immediately and vaulted over the low stack of crates, ignoring the pulling in my chest. The man was swearing under his breath, and though I couldn’t see him I pinpointed his position. I fired again, seeking gaps between the drums as I lunged forward and kicked the nearest drum over. The rim hit the man, and he struggled to get a good position on me. I swept up chemicals with the toe of my boot and the liquid splashed over his features. It wasn’t acid in the conventional sense, so wasn’t an immediate threat to him, but reaction forced his eyelids tight and his mouth pinched shut. While he was blinded, I shot him twice in the chest and he sank down.
I looked at him for the briefest of time. Like others I’d fought, it was long enough to tell I’d never seen him before in my life. Within seconds we’d become mortal enemies, and he had died. Such was the world that we moved in. I turned from him, running for the far end of the storage room, knowing that if I were pinned inside then the tight space would become a shooting gallery where I was the only sitting duck. I made the door and slipped into a service corridor just as the sound of running feet reached my ears. I plastered myself into a recessed doorway, out of sight as a guard running to back up the two I’d just killed pounded along the corridor. His adrenalin must have been racing because he showed no caution, heading directly for the door I’d just exited. I waited, holding my breath, my right elbow braced against the door behind me. He came into my line of sight for the briefest second, but it was long enough for me to shoot twice, the silenced rounds giving him no warning as they plunged into him. Then he was gone from view, but I heard him crumple and then slide on to the floor, his gun clattering. I came out behind him, and put another round through his skull. The slide stayed back on my gun, so I reached for his firearm. Before I’d been outgunned, but my collection was growing and his Colt M4 carbine was a welcome addition to my arsenal. This was the weapon of choice of the United States armed forces, lightweight for mobility and target acquisition, but with the potent firepower ability for most combat operations. The PMC hadn’t got off a shot so I took it that the magazine was full, and on his webbing belt I found spare mags of 5.56 x 45 NATO rounds. So that I wasn’t encumbered – I’d enough guns in my belt to contend with – I shoved one of the spare magazines down the front of my antiballistic vest, and another in my jacket pocket, and dumped the now depleted handgun and silence
r.
I pulled and released the arming bolt on the carbine, and hit the selection switch to single shot. On fully automatic the magazine would be emptied in as little as one and a half seconds. Ferocious firepower by anybody’s reckoning, but a waste of bullets. Then I paced along the corridor, listening, judging, trying desperately to hear another clue as to where Billie was. The corridor wasn’t long, and it turned at a right angle to the left, forming little more than a vestibule where there was a bank of elevators. I moved past them, and through another door and into a larger storage or workroom. There were counters laid out along two sides and a broad counter down the centre like a kitchen island, on which were various scientific contraptions. The air stank of chemicals, and static electricity charged the air from the number of machines that blinked and whirred and whistled. If I’d to guess, I’d say I was in a laboratory, possibly where some of the research into Procrylon’s acrylic polymer developments took form. Ordinarily this room should be heavily guarded against intruders, but with the alarms ringing and armed PMCs racing to secure the building, the civilian workers had quickly evacuated, and those tasked with guarding it had been the first responders I’d just shot down.
I moved through the room cautiously, and exited into another service corridor, again with a right-angled turn, this one to the right. I snuck a quick look around the corner and found an empty vestibule, but then noticed the ubiquitous swing doors that were a regular feature here. I crept to them and rather than peer through one of the porthole windows, I stayed near the wall and peeked through the slim gap up the edge of the nearest door. Beyond was another huge storage facility, this one stacked with steel and plastic drums, rows of metal shelves, shrink-wrapped boxes and packing crates.
The overhead lights suddenly dimmed, and somewhere a red alarm beacon flashed, causing shadows to strobe. Faintly I heard the recorded warning repeating. I moved into the room cautiously, ducking low, and moved among the rows of drums; I had gained the final quarter of the room when four armed men blocked any further progress. They weren’t total amateurs either. They had positioned themselves either side of the exit doorway so that to advance would place me in their converging arcs of fire. Try to escape that way and I’d be holed like a sieve in seconds. My only saving grace was that they were unaware of my arrival. I kept my head down, but my relatively safe hiding place would be compromised if anyone crept in on me via the laboratory. I breathed in, holding the air in my lungs as I attempted to come up with a contingency plan.
To retreat meant losing ground I couldn’t afford, and really wasn’t an option. I could be returning to the killing grounds I’d just escaped if reinforcements had arrived. Best that I continue on, but to do that I had to first shatter the blockade ahead. My M4 carbine was a superior weapon to the handguns that the four men wielded, and I could probably drop a couple of them before the others got off a return shot. But it only took one of them to get a clear target and Billie’s rescue attempt was over.
I crouched behind a stack of oil drums. Ordinarily the number of steel barrels would protect me, but I worried about their contents: for all I knew they were flammable and a stray spark from a ricochet would be enough to set off a chain reaction that would see me incinerated. A quick check of the nearest barrel didn’t give any clues about what it contained; I could see no symbols, only faded writing in a foreign script I didn’t recognise let alone understand. There was a chemical stink, but again it was too weak to define. Whatever, I didn’t want to be splashed with the liquid inside. I belly-crawled to the left, toes and elbows, holding up the M4 so that it didn’t rattle on the floor and give away my position.
The four men argued briefly. I only heard a couple of clear words, but they were enough to tell me that they were all nervous and trigger-happy. One of them urged his fellows to advance, but it sounded as if none of them was eager to go first. Couldn’t say that I blamed them. They suspected I was out there in the warehouse, if not exactly where.
Coming up against a wall, I rose to a crouch and pressed my shoulder against it for support as I levelled my assault rifle over the top of a steel drum, this one empty and lacking a lid. The angle I presented had been cut down by fifty per cent, but then so had my choice of targets. The odds were more to my liking than before though: less chance of me being killed immediately. I aimed the carbine like a hunting rifle and lined it up with the furthest man on the right. As before I inhaled, then held my breath. My pulse was loud in my ears, but there was no transposition to my fingers and I held the barrel steady on its target. I waited.
A harsh whisper passed between the men. Perhaps one of the couple on the left took a look for me, but he was out of my line of sight. I waited some more. The whisperer said something else and this time the nearest man to my right poked his head out from his hiding place. He was an indistinct blur against the darker background. I could have killed him, but he wasn’t my target of choice. I had to cut down the man at the rear right corner, then the one to front right. Do it in reverse order and the man furthest away would become more difficult to hit. Finally my target couldn’t contain his inquisitiveness, and feeling protected by his buddies he stepped out and aimed a flashlight into the room, sweeping it towards the drums behind which I’d earlier hidden. Exhaling, I caressed the trigger, nice and gentle, and the beam of the flashlight swept the ceiling as its wielder went down on his back. In the brief flare of light I saw droplets of red in the air and knew that I’d scored a direct hit on the man’s head. The lack of a death scream also confirmed it. Reaction to my gun’s retort brought out the nearest man to the right, but he had not seen the muzzle flash and his bullets scorched the air a good ten feet across the room from me. I triple-tapped him. Two in centre mass, one a bit higher up. Throat or head, it didn’t much matter, because he would be dead or close enough to it that he too was out of the fight.
Immediately I went to my knees, placing the steel drums between us, but with no intention of staying there. I knee-walked a few feet, then went down on my belly and squirmed across the floor so that I was a good twenty feet from my original position. There was no obstruction between the remaining two gunmen and me but they misconstrued my position, thinking me still braced up against the wall at their side. The back man couldn’t fire for fear of hitting his pal in the spine, which meant only one of them could lean out and shoot at a time. Again I’d have preferred a line on the furthest man first, but I wouldn’t turn down a gift either. From the left a man stepped out. He was small, wiry, a scarecrow’s shadow against the darkness, but he presented more body mass than the other man as he raised his gun two-handed and fired along the wall at my imagined position. From my place on the ground I flipped the selector to fully auto and pulled the trigger. The flashes from my gun lit up the warehouse like a mad scientist’s lab, and the third man span and went down in a series of strobing movements. Before he’d finished falling though, man number four was shooting, and this time he’d the advantage of having spotted me.
I held my prone position. He could see me, but I still made a poor target for a man with a handgun who was shooting on adrenalin and terror. A round struck the wall to my side and whined away into darkness. Another found the floor and skipped up dangerously close to my face. Despite my resolve I flinched and the move pulled the M4 up and high to the right as I fired back. I missed the gunman and he ducked back through a door into an adjoining room. The clicks and snaps of a man hurriedly re-arming his gun sounded.
I rolled to my left, placing steel drums between us again, though these were a few yards distant.
From behind me came the slap of feet and the clinks and bumps of reinforcements hurrying to the scene of our battle. There was no time for subtlety. No time for stalking the final gunman, or for getting into a cat and mouse chase. I had to move now. But if I ran for the exit he need only lean out and it would be first to fire that survived. At a crouch I ran to the drums and forced my shoulder against the one at the centre of the stack. It almost went over on its side at my fi
rst push. Told me the steel drum wasn’t nearly full enough to offer much cover, but that wasn’t my purpose. Placing down the M4, I got two palms on the rim and jostled it off the pallet on to the floor.
The clang of the drum striking ground brought out my quarry, and he fired. Rounds struck steel, but he’d fired at the stack of drums, not the one I crouched behind. Luckily for me they didn’t prove as flammable as I’d feared. By the time I lifted my carbine he’d dipped back into the room. I stood and kicked the barrel over on its side, then placed my foot against it to line it up and pushed it into a roll towards the room he hid in.
